There is no such thing as morality
Is there such a thing as something you should do? Is it a universal law that applies to everyone? Is it an objective law that is inherent to the universe?
There is no morality
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There is a morality
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What? We are talking about morality? Oh I was just talking about my colour blindness. Isn't morality defining what is right and what is wrong? If I believe that everything is a shade of grey (in regards to morality), then I believe that there is no right and there is no wrong. So... I don't believe (universal) morality exists. Side: There is no morality
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I am coming to the conclusion that there is no morality. Morality says "you should do this" or "you shouldn't do that". To me this implies that there is a decision to be made. I believe that the only action people can take is that which maximizes their own utility. What gives us utility is determined by our genes, culture (Dawkin's memes), and to a limited extent (for most people), our own will. What makes us have different views of morality is our situation, the information we have, and what gives us utility. For some people, to lie, cheat, and steal is their best option to maximize their own utility. They do not have any better option, think North Korean refugees lying in order to get out of the country, think Jean Valjean stealing a loaf of bread for his starving sister. For others, they have found that to cooperate is better than to fight amongst themselves. Would you rather live in Somalia or Canada? Obviously, it is better to live in Canada and not have to worry about pirates stealing everything you have every day. Societies that make laws and enforce them do better than those who don't. Jihadists (and crusaders) do their horrible acts out of lack of information. They believe that there is an afterlife waiting for them and this life is just a game to rack up brownie points with the guy running that afterlife. Given those ridiculous beliefs, it is perfectly rational for them to act in the way they do. They are only maximizing their own utility. If they were to find out there is no afterlife, or that the brownie point system they were following was wrong, they would change their actions. What gives us utility is an interesting topic. Some things are practically universally good to humans (usually arising from our shared genes), things like procreation, eating, sleeping, being alive. Others are common among a society or community (arising from culture), things like the asian need to care for their parents, music and fashion tastes, monogamy, the western family structure. Finally, there is the utility determined by one's own will. Once you realize that happiness is something internal to yourself, that the value of everything is determined by you, that there is no intrinsic value to anything besides the value you give it, then you become the god of your own universe. You can decide to value whatever you want. You can decide that the values given to you by culture and your genes are no longer what you value. You can decide not to want children, you can decide you can decide not to want the American dream, you can make your own dream. Of course all that requires overcoming those old values which is no easy task, but I digress. The point is that in the end people, to the extent their intellect and willpower will allow, will choose to value whatever makes them happiest. I choose to value success because I believe I can be successful, you may choose to value others because you believe you can help them. One person may have the willpower to rejoice when a relationship ends because of an incompatibility, others will be overcome by the values of culture and their genes and wallow in self-pity. For me, the question of what should we do is silly. The real question is what will we do as we gain more information, what will we do in certain situations, what will we choose to value? "Should"s only trick people for a while, soon they will find that, in their situation, the "should" doesn't maximize their utility (try telling the mother of a starving child that stealing is wrong), or they will gain information proving the "should" is not reasonable (a good example is religion) or they will reject the values of the "should" for their own (as in the case of the rejection of consumerism). Side: There is no morality
I am coming to the conclusion that there is no morality. Morality says "you should do this" or "you shouldn't do that". Morality does more than dictate what should and should not be done; it also casts a value judgement on those actions (or thoughts). To me this implies that there is a decision to be made. I believe that the only action people can take is that which maximizes their own utility. What gives us utility is determined by our genes, culture (Dawkin's memes), and to a limited extent (for most people), our own will. I disagree on your use of utility, but more on that in a moment. What I mean to dispute here is your presumption of "will"; there is no proof it exists, while there is growing research attributing more and more of our thoughts and actions to our genetics and experiences. What makes us have different views of morality is our situation, the information we have, and what gives us utility. [...] Societies that make laws and enforce them do better than those who don't. Your argument here underscores the problem in defining morality in terms of utility. Many people would still hold lying, stealing, cheating, etc. to be immoral (including those committing the acts), though they would acknowledge there necessity in terms of utility. Jihadists (and crusaders) do their horrible acts out of lack of information. [...] If they were to find out there is no afterlife, or that the brownie point system they were following was wrong, they would change their actions. It is not rational, but it is explainable. More importantly, I think this demonstrates quite well why utility is a poor concept to attach to morality. Arguably, the emotional utility of the jihadist may be gratified... but their physical utility is not. It is imprecise to ignore the physical component, and more accurate to describe the motivation of morality in terms of the hedonistic emotional component. What gives us utility is an interesting topic. [...] One person may have the willpower to rejoice when a relationship ends because of an incompatibility, others will be overcome by the values of culture and their genes and wallow in self-pity. I disagree that anyone chooses their morality, at least in the common conception of the term. It is interesting to me that you seem to believe in the power of this choice, while still using the limiting language of the weak will. Personally, I reject the notion of willpower altogether; it is an illusory idea that lets some people believe we have a degree of control that we do not have. What we believe and do is not under our purview, but a consequence of our genetics and conditioning. I also disagree that morality always (or even often) serves our interests. People are quite often made miserable by the moralities they hold, and this is because morality is not something we choose in pursuit of our desires/utility but something that is determined by our environment and genetics together. For me, the question of what should we do is silly. The real question is what will we do as we gain more information, what will we do in certain situations, what will we choose to value? [...] The real question, in my opinion, is why we should value the action (or thought) at all. It seems to me you are just changing the words without altering the substance - value instead of morality. In short, I suspect I disagree less with the substance of your argument and more with the semantics it is expressed in. Side: There is no morality
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Thank you for calling bullshit on the willpower stuff. I just finished "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" by Nietzsche and he has me all psyched for the uberman. This part of my argument is the weakest. I am assuming that this willpower is what makes consciousness special, which is completely unsubstantiated. It is not a critical part of my argument. You can remove willpower (but I might keep it as the origin of cultural ideas) and just have utility determined by nature and nurture. As for the rest of my argument, I put it up to see how wrong I was. It turns out it needs work/clarification. I definitely need to think about it for a bit. But that doesn't mean I won't defend it a little more. Your argument here underscores the problem in defining morality in terms of utility. Many people would still hold lying, stealing, cheating, etc. to be immoral (including those committing the acts), though they would acknowledge there necessity in terms of utility. I need to clarify the meaning of utility. I claim people are maximizing something. That something is completely determined within themselves. I call this utility. The extent to which events in the outside world affect a person's utility is determined by the value that person has for that event. Therefore, claiming that someone should act to maximize anything else (e.g. good or glory or any other metric of morality) is silly because they are unable of doing so unless it match their utility. I also disagree that morality always (or even often) serves our interests. People are quite often made miserable by the moralities they hold, and this is because morality is not something we choose in pursuit of our desires/utility but something that is determined by our environment and genetics together. True, many a person is haunted by their sense of morality. Why don't they choose to value a more convenient morality? Well, I would postulate that they so value moral truth that they would rather be tormented than live in denial. In other words, they are better off in term of relative utility. Now, you may ask, why don't they choose not to value moral truth? I think that is because they lack the willpower to overcome their own emotions (or they lack the conditioning or genes to do so if we avoid the concept of will).
The real question, in my opinion, is why we should value the action (or thought) at all. It seems to me you are just changing the words without altering the substance - value instead of morality. I think we will always assign value to things. We will alway prefer some food to others, some jobs to others, some friends to others. I don't think we have to say that an action was "good" or "bad" in some moral sense, that is exactly what I am arguing against! What we can say is "I prefer that action to the other" or "i like this purpose more than that purpose", just as I prefer homemade vanilla to dutch chocolate ice cream. Being a person like Hitler is just a lifestyle preference (that doesn't mean I won't adopt a lifestyle of going after such people). There is nothing "wrong" with that. It is simply an action. I think this philosophy changes the thought process from "We must bring these evil people to justice" to "Given that these people are acting in their own self-interest, just as I am, how can I construct a set of rules (a set of responses to their actions) that will make it their self-interest not to go against my self-interest" from "teach our children right from wrong!" to "how do we construct a society in which people acting in their own self-interest will work toward mutually beneficial goals?". It may be tempting to say that may be contradicting myself by saying that I am assigning good to be cooperative interaction of people and evil to be the non cooperative outcome. This is not true, game theory shows us that most times interactions between purely selfish individuals leads to cooperative outcomes. So I am saying that self-interested beings would want to cooperate as long as they were given some assurance of not being cheated. Side: There is no morality
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It seems you are only arguing against a very specific type of morality, i.e. a morality that is universal and situation independent. One could argue that morality is situation dependent, and therefore it might indeed be morally correct for Jean Valjean to steal a loaf of bread, while the same doesn't apply to me. I think people can accept that it's atleast 'closer' to being OK if Jean steals than if I did (considering the fact he did it for the sake of self-presevation, I would do it for no good reason). So if I were to say that morality is situation dependent, then your current argument isn't necesarilly an argument for the non-existence of morality. For instance, if I argued that morality is situation dependent, and based on utilitarian principles, then it seems more like your post becomes an argument in favor of this particular kind of morality. Side: There is a morality
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My thesis is that there is no sense arguing what people "should" do. No matter what, they will do what maximizes their utility. I am not saying that Jean Valjean was acting in a morally good way, I am saying that no matter what you told him he should do, he is going to steal the bread. Only if you convince him that it is somehow in his own interest not to steal can you sway his mind. What I am saying is that good is not an end in itself. It only has value to the amount it helps people get what they want. People don't care about justice, they don't care about equality, these are just means to an end. The only goal in life is utility, and that is internal to every person. They themselves can define what gives them utility. To clarify, I am NOT saying you should adopt this "morality". I am saying that, not matter what you think should or should not be, this is what will happen. So if we find some objective system of morality, who cares? We can't follow it anyway. Side: There is no morality
In order for "should"s to be futile you must be willing to admit that no thing or act has objective value over another. If teaching someone to cultivate their own food supply holds no objective value over consuming as many Twinkies as possible then perhaps there is no morality. Since, as you note, we all have value systems, and since truth is objective, there must be some values which are better than others. Side: There is a morality
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There is, humanity just has a problem with identifying its source and method of emergence. Most cultures have turned to "revealed" morality from holy books and prophets, apparently under the belief that such things could not emerge from human conscience naturally, even though philosophers have demonstrated otherwise by showing moral arguments that rely more on observation and thought than repeated sacred commands. But this reliance on some "outside source" for morality is problematic on several levels and adds complication to the topic that has made it hard to have a sensible conversation on the subject, and establishing a universally recognized definition has been impossible. If morality is about "right and wrong" then we need a frame a reference. Morality can be seen to refer to the "meaning of life". Religions have messed this up by searching for meanings that exist beyond the plainly obvious. But now that we have biology to learn from, we can identify one intrinsic meaning that is indisputable. To survive as a species. Our species is an inherently social species, so I argue that morality needs to incorporate and foster the social element, and I think it is fair to slightly shift focus from species to societal arrangements. So, I believe it is possible to identify something as objectively moral if its final net result is positive for society or members of it that are not yourself, particularly if it involves some sacrifice on your part. Side: There is a morality
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You don't seem to understand evolution. Genes are the unit of selection, not species or individuals. We were created for one purpose, to make as many copies of our genes as possible. The only reason we were programmed by our genes to care about others is: 1) To become better off through cooperation. We use people, if we could cheat or steal from someone without consequence, our genes would command us to do that. 2) to help the copies of our genes in our close relatives. If our death could save enough of our close relatives we would be commanded to die for them, even if they were all Hitlers and Stalins. Given that evolution is about genes and not about the survival machines they built (us), we have no obligation to "the good of the species". Our genes don't care about the species. Evolution doesn't care about the species. So if you want to fulfill your "purpose" from a evolutionary perspective, then find every way to cheat, steal, lie, be a deadbeat dad to as many children as possible, all while maintaining the outward appearance of a cooperative member of society. That is nature's perfect man. Of course, this dystopian figure is not something I strive for. I may have been created by genes to make them a bunch of copies but I can and do reject their charter. Man has been working up to this ever since consciousness was achieved. We can now use birth control, we are willing to help those not related to us, we have, to some extent, rejected the purpose genes gave us. We are glad to satisfy all the desires genes gave us but now we don't have to bear the consequences of those actions. We can have two children instead of sixteen. We can wait until 30 to begin having kids. We can define a different purpose for ourselves other than the one given to use by genes and natural selection. I strongly recommend "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins if you would like to know more about how evolution works. He is a great writer and has much to say about the perils of using evolution as a source of morality. Side: There is no morality
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1) To become better off through cooperation. We use people, if we could cheat or steal from someone without consequence, our genes would command us to do that. And yet there is consequence, and when there is not (such as societies that do not have a sense of personal ownership) then it clearly is not counter-productive to our best interests. Hypothetical such as what you propose are irrelevant because for them to be effective, enough other aspects of our existence would have to be so different that we would be playing by totally different sets of rules. Its best to focus on what we DO have to work with and respond to. If our death could save enough of our close relatives we would be commanded to die for them, even if they were all Hitlers and Stalins. Not necessarily. As humans, we can think beyond our base imperatives. We can know that we need genetic diversity, we can identify that some people contribute a net loss to society, regardless of if we are related to them. The base for my assessment on morality IS rooted in evolutionary processes, but our intellect is an integral part of that as it is one of our "signature" advantages. Given that evolution is about genes and not about the survival machines they built (us), Unnecessary and unhelpful distinction, at least for this type of discussion. If those survival machines do not reproduce, the genes have a dead-end. If there is nobody for us to mate with, dead-end. Species dies? Dead end. The survival of the individual and the species is crucially important to the propagation of those genes. So if you want to fulfill your "purpose" from a evolutionary perspective, then find every way to cheat, steal, lie, be a deadbeat dad to as many children as possible, all while maintaining the outward appearance of a cooperative member of society. That is nature's perfect man. In my initial statement, I outlined a need for including the social element in this assessment. These anti-social tendencies would destabilize social groups and cause us to be entirely reliant on ourselves rather than getting support from others. This would most likely lower life expectancy and birthrates. If that was our best survival mechanism, we would be different creatures and already be doing it. And in that sense, yes it would be moral. Of course, this dystopian figure is not something I strive for. For good reason. It would be devastating to our genes and our survival. We can now use birth control, we are willing to help those not related to us, we have, to some extent, rejected the purpose genes gave us. We are glad to satisfy all the desires genes gave us but now we don't have to bear the consequences of those actions. We can have two children instead of sixteen. We can wait until 30 to begin having kids. We can define a different purpose for ourselves other than the one given to use by genes and natural selection. And we now have the highest planetary population ever and greater life expectancy, which is wonderful for the propagation of those genes. I'm not sure I understand your point? Side: There is a morality
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I think what I am saying is that there is no good or evil. There is only the pursuit of happiness. It is pointless to say "you should do this" because people are incapable of doing anything besides what maximizes their own utility. Only if you convince them that it does maximizes their utility will they follow that command. You cannot even say "you should value this" because they will only do so if they think it will make them better off. Basically, I am saying that "should" is meaningless and in that sense there is no morality. In another sense I am saying that there is one morality and we can only uncover it through knowledge and self-overcoming (maybe I did learn something from Nietzsche). Side: There is no morality
I think what I am saying is that there is no good or evil Then that I can agree with. Good and evil are but perceptions, they do not exist apart from the perceptions that determine them. Things aren’t good or evil, our perceptions of those things are. It’s similar to “big and small,” neither actually exist apart from our perceptions of them and neither can be recognized without comparing what we consider “big” to what we consider “small.” It is pointless to say "you should do this" because people are incapable of doing anything besides what maximizes their own utility… I am saying that "should" is meaningless and in that sense there is no morality. In another sense I am saying that there is one morality and we can only uncover it through knowledge and self-overcoming If you would be so kind as to define: “morality,” “should,” “incapable,” “maximizes,” “utility,” and “self-overcoming.” And please clarify the difference between “own utility” and “utility” in general. I think I’m pickin up what you’re putting down, but I just want to be sure I understand you’re diction before continuing. Side: There is no morality
Morality reflects your values. Today's society has such a diverse set of values that it's hard to tell who's right and who's wrong. One persons truth is another person's lie. I think we must go back to biblical principles; it was the first form of truth that separates good from bad, right from wrong, even 2,000+ years later. Side: There is a morality
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Didn't you hear? God is dead. He died 100 years ago. We no longer trust the argument "My God is the one true God and I know it because He is the one true God". Furthermore, the bible is open to interpretation, we can use it to justify massacres of Muslims or the bombing of abortion clinics as well as to justify giving to the poor and feeding the hungry. So, I ask you, which interpretation should we use of this book? The one used when the church ruled the leading governments? I am not too stoked about being boiled alive for atheism. What should we use to determine which interpretation to use? Now we have become God because we get to determine how to interpret his book. He has become irrelevant. Side: There is no morality
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